Vancouver: The increasing number of independent filmmakers using digital video instead of film to capture their auteur visions need not think they are compromising their image quality.

At least that’s the sales line at three-month-old Vancouver-based Digital Film Group, which is using proprietary systems to specialize in digital video-to-film transfers.

Notable productions like The Celebration, Buena Vista Social Club and The Blair Witch Project are not examples of good dv-to-film transfers, says company principal James Tocher, a Vancouver-based cinematographer who has a growing practice in dv. He shot the Dogme-style feature Noroc on dv and is about to film the 24-minute baroque period production Evirati for Bravo!, also on dv.

The big-name productions suffer from the jagged lines and jerky movement that scream ‘Video!’ ‘A better transfer could have been done,’ says Tocher.

Similar to what Soho Digital does in Toronto, Tocher uses his own algorithms in the transfer process to compress ntsc video’s 30 frames per second into the 24 frames per second used by 35mm film, without sacrificing resolution.

He can also bump up the image from the 720 lines in video to the 2,000 lines in film, again without ruining the image. (He can also transfer pal’s 25 frames per minute to film.)

The result, he says, after months of testing and demonstration, is that transferred dv can have the resolution and motion of old-fashioned film.

Potentially more expensive than the production budget of the dv feature, the cost of a transfer is in the range of $500 a minute, although he stresses that it depends very much on the needs of the production.

As yet, however, no features have gone through the process. Vancouver-made features such as Noroc (by Digital Film partner Marc Retailleau), No More Monkeys and Echo Lake await the financing required to do the transfers.

Instead, Digital Film is cutting its business teeth on commercials and digitally edited movie trailers that go through dv transfer instead of incurring the expenses of labs, negative cutting and other film costs.

Cinematographer Tim Moynihan is the company’s third partner.

Digital Film is hosting another demonstration of its transfers (including the format comparison test in which a variety of film and dv cameras simultaneously shot the same scene of a dancing woman) with post-production house MV Video on May 27 at the Pacific Cinematheque. Digital Film will also present its work at the Seattle Film Festival on June 9.

* My character wouldn’t say that

On May 20, meanwhile, short film director Neil Every (The Fare) will shoot reelpeople.com, another Dogme-inspired effort. The dv production, using hand-held cameras, natural light and other Dogme commandments, has a script with nary of line of dialogue.

Twenty actors spent six weeks workshopping a secret script prior to going to camera for a 48-hour shoot in 12 Vancouver locations.

MacKenzie Gray (Cold Squad, So Weird), Naomi Snieckus (Stuck!), Shelley MacDonald (Cold Squad), Don McWilliams (Millennium) and Adam Harrington (Da Vinci’s Inquest, Outer Limits) lead the cast.

In an effort to fund the project, the producers are doing it as a 48-hour film-a-thon, where each hour is budgeted at $100 for a total budget of $4,800.

* Make a short story long

Mile Zero, one of the few West Coast features to gain lfp funding, represents the feature-length efforts of filmmakers with short-form pedigrees.

Producer Blake Corbet, who made the short film The Chain with Molly Parker; Trent Carlson, who made the short film Groomed; and Andrew Currie, who was Gemini-nominated for his direction in last year’s Twisteeria; make up Anagram Pictures of Vancouver.

The film, meanwhile, is about a man who copes with the disintegration of his marriage by taking off with his nine-year-old son. Currie and Michael Melski have written the script that will translate into a $1.5-million production budget funded by lfp, wic, TMN-The Movie Network, Showcase and distributor Forefront Releasing.

Production goes in August, says Corbet, with locations between Vancouver and Lilloett, a few hours north.

The other West Coast English-language feature with lfp money is Tribe of Joseph by Soloshye Pictures of North Vancouver.

* Knick knack, patty whack

Rapper Snoop Dogg and Pam Grier star in the Newline production of Bones. The horror-thriller is ‘a mythic story of betrayal and revenge, retribution and terror,’ say its press notes. Dogg stars as the benevolent protector of a neighborhood, who, 20 years after being murdered, returns to seek revenge against his killers.

Production wrapped in Vancouver May 3 and the film will be in theatres in time for Halloween.

* Death wish

In Kill Me Later (a.k.a. Take My Life, Please), Vancouver actors Brendan Fehr (Roswell) and Lochlyn Munro (Dead Man on Campus) star with Selma Blair (Cruel Intentions, Zoe) and other u.s. actors.

The Los Angeles-based indie (Bergman-Lustig Productions) is about a depressed woman (Blair) who, on the verge of flinging herself from a bank building, becomes a hostage as part of a botched robbery. The only way she’ll co-operate is if the thief agrees to kill her later. Excitement, intrigue ensue.

Production wraps May 14.

* Timing is everything

While the glitteratti convene on the French Riviera May 10 to 21 for the actual Cannes Film Festival, the producers of the E! Entertainment Television mow Murder at the Cannes Film Festival will be shooting all the background shots prior to moving the production to Vancouver for 18 more days of production.

Bo Derek and French Stewart (Dick) star in the story about an actor – notable for his television role as a tv detective – who becomes the prime suspect when a movie star dies at the festival.

This will be Shavick Entertainment’s seventh title of the calendar and the fourth project for the upstart E! specialty channel.